03 May 2023
03 May 2023

Sottil: "We've beaten big teams here before"

The boss previews Thursday's clash with league leaders Napoli

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Andrea Sottil insists Napoli's imminent title celebrations are no concern of his as he looks to steer Udinese into a top-half finish.
 
The coach was speaking ahead of Thursday's Week 33 fixture, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday before being rearranged to tie in with Napoli's pending Scudetto triumph.
 
“It's an unusual situation. Obviously when fixture times and dates get changed, you need to adapt your schedule somewhat. We've focused on preparing to play this game on Thursday bearing in mind that it might have been brought forward. 
 
“Personally it makes no difference to me whether Napoli win the Scudetto tomorrow or not. We have our own objective, which as I've said many times is to finish as high as possible in the top half of the table. We owe that to ourselves, to the owners and to our fans. We want to end the season strong because besides anything else it would help strengthen our mentality going forwards. I'm not interested in anything that concerns Napoli. 
 
“I expect Napoli to be very aggressive, as always. They come forward strong and look to win duels in every area of the pitch. They have a clear playing style and top quality throughout the squad. The work [Luciano] Spalletti has done over the last two years has reaped its rewards.
 
“Nonetheless, I think we have the potential and the ability to cause problems for Napoli. We've shown that before because other big teams have lost here.
 
“It will be a tough match because they've been top of the league all season. We're well aware of the difficulties but we're focused on playing our own game. 
 
“We weren't up to our usual standards in the last match but this team have always shown they're capable of bouncing back from a poor performance so I expect them to perform well tomorrow. 
 
“All of our players are competitive. We have some younger lads who have improved loads, like Festy [Ebosele]. They all train hard and really want to play. I'll weigh everything up but I've always shown I like to rotate my squad and give everyone a chance. We don't have loads of options so when I rotate I have to consider everything carefully. But they've all done well when called upon and they all want to play their part in the run-in. 
 
“[Ilija Nestorovski has always worked hard and been professional. He understands his role in the dressing room and he's always carried it out well. I've shown faith in him and when he's done his part, chipping in with goals and assists. He showed good movement against Lecce and put in a big shift, chasing and winning back balls – even ones he'd lost. Without Beto and [Isaac] Success, we had different attributes in attack so we had to adapt our play. I'm sure Nesto will help us in our remaining games – his movement in the box is second to none.”